Taking as its starting point Pier Paolo Pasolini’s analysis of exploitation of labour and Jean Baudrillard’s idea of commodification Trimming the Arts examines the current metaphysical remnants of state, society and the citizen.

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche,“ (let them eat cake), exclaimed Queen Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions (1782). Similarly, Silvio Berlusconi, denying the effects of the crisis in Italy at the press conference of the G20 in Cannes, declared that “i ristoranti sono pieni,“ (the restaurants are full.)

The talk will present and discuss the artistic and curatorial practice of the Museum of Contemporary Cuts, addressing the role that art has to play, if any role at all, in the current crisis that is not solely economic but a crisis of society itself, since the concepts of citizenship and state are not just in crisis but have become trite illusory representations; simulacra of no value.